Pennsylvania legislature takes aim at the outdoors

Pa. Game Commission, Fish and Boat fight proposed merger.

February 25, 2014|Gary Blockus

The Pennsylvania Legislature is threatening to merge the Pennsylvania Game Commission with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and take away their power to list or delist threatened and endangered species.

Sportsmen don't like it when hunting and fishing turns political, and these hot-button topics are as political as it gets. Heck, hunters and anglers don't even like the PGC and PFBC getting overly restrictive with their favorite pastimes.

But now, sportsmen across the commonwealth need to be aware of a few dates in March and make their voices heard by the appropriate state representatives and senators in their areas. At stake are the future of Pennsylvania's wildlife and habitat.

House Bill 1576, the Endangered Species Coordination Act, which would remove the ability of both the game commission and fish and boat to add or subtract wildlife from the state's threatened and endangered species lists, could come up for a vote on the House floor as early as March 10.

On March 19, game commission officials will go in front of the House Game and Fisheries Committee to discuss a number of pieces of legislation on deer management.

And, on March 19, the legislative Budget and Finance Committee will hold a 10 a.m. meeting on the potential merger of PGC and PFBC into one agency, a move that would strip autonomy from each agency and seriously affect how funds will be allocated for certain programs.

"One thing [PFBC Executive Director John Arway] and I agree on is that it would dilute the ability, in our case, to take care of the hundreds of birds and animals we have been legislated to take care of. It would be a huge conflict for manpower and funding to take care of each thing," said PGC Executive Director Matt Hough, who took over for Carl Roe in January.

Hough and Arway were part of a phone seminar set up by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association last week to discuss current legislative issues with the agencies.

"If we merged and combined funds, there would be a huge drag on the funds to deal with deer issues because we all know the public's desire to work on deer," Arway said. "It would take us from focusing on fish and boating recreation and redirect our attention to other hot button topics that come up."

If the state legislature thinks they'd be saving money by combining the agencies, Hough said they are mistaken.

"Even though we're sister agencies, the cost of merging would be tremendous," Hough said. "It would take a tremendous amount of manpower and a lot of legislation to combine the [various] codes."

Wildlife conservation officers and waterways conservation officers are under two different bargaining units with different benefits and compensations. Making those uniform might lead to the costliest of both worlds.

Cross-training the officers to do each other's jobs is possible with additional training, but would limit the two types of WCOs to more law enforcement and less public outreach.

"Right now, we have specialized officers who do their jobs very well," Arway said. "If there were hybrids, we would lose a lot of that specialized training. For instance, we have specialized officers that do water rescue training. It would be very difficult to do that if we gave them both fish and game duties."

Another big hit both agencies would take would be in their deputy WCO programs, which are voluntary and actually cost the volunteers money to meet the agency requirements. The volunteer deputies provide critical trained manpower the agencies can't pay for due to lack of funds.

Arway doesn't want to see a rise in prices for the general fishing license because the agency loses about 10 percent of licensees each time the legislature has allowed the raise. The game commission, on the other hand, has begged for a license increase. The last one came in the 1990s.

The Endangered Species Coordination Act, HB1517 and Senate Bill 1047, would strip the authority of listing and delisting wildlife from the state's threatened and endangered lists (not the federal lists) and turn it over to the legislature with review by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission.

This move would politicize a process that protects wildlife and its habitat, which is extremely important in the wake of the Marcellus Shale industry in the state. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, with some input from Lehigh Valley Zoo Executive Director Rick Molchany, has issued a statement opposing the proposed bills. The AZA is one in a long list of conservation groups, including the Quality Deer Management Association, National Wild Turkey Federation, Trout Unlimited, National Audubon Society and a host of others in-state and nationwide that are against the bill.

Sportsmen need to be involved in this process by contacting their area legislators and letting them know how they feel about the proposals. The future of the outdoors and our wildlife in Pennsylvania depends on it.